OLKILUOTO, Finland — As the Obama administration tries to steer America toward cleaner sources of energy, it would do well to consider the cautionary tale of this new-generation nuclear reactor site.
The massive power plant under construction on muddy terrain on this Finnish island was supposed to be the showpiece of a nuclear renaissance. The most powerful reactor ever built, its modular design was supposed to make it faster and cheaper to build. And it was supposed to be safer, too.
BRUSSELS — BRUSSELS: As France presses ahead with building more next-generation nuclear reactors, new evidence emerged Friday to suggest that industry and governments may be unprepared to handle the increasingly toxic waste that will result.
Highlighting the importance of the technology in France, both as its main source of electricity and as a major export industry, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced late Thursday that Électricité de France, Europe's biggest power producer, was awarded the contract to develop a second atomic reactor using next-generation technology.
Platts - The US, France and Japan are working to put international mechanisms into place to help finance construction of nuclear power plants in the US and elsewhere, government officials and financial analysts said this month.
Two principal targets are international financial institutions, such as the World Bank, and national export credit agencies, the sources said.
Turkey suffered a setback in its efforts to reduce a costly dependence on energy imports on Wednesday, receiving just one bid in a tender to build the country’s first nuclear power plant.
The 4,000-megawatt plant near Mersin on the Mediterranean coast is intended to be the first of three, aimed at averting power shortages and lessening reliance on natural gas imports from Russia and Iran.
World uranium production at the end of 2006 was 39,603 tonnes, meeting only 60% of world nuclear reactor requirements, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency said in a biannual report released Tuesday.
